


Are You There God?  It's Me, Rodney.

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, body transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-21
Updated: 2007-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:29:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney gets his first period. (It goes without saying that this is utter crack, right?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Are You There God?  It's Me, Rodney.

It starts, as all trauma is wont to do in the Pegasus Galaxy, with someone touching something they shouldn't.

This time it's Rodney who triggers the piercing flash of light, who blacks out at the pain that blooms through his abdomen, who drifts back to consciousness feeling so nauseated he can barely speak. He keeps his eyes closed, trying to will his stomach to behave, even though it feels as though someone's stirred his vital organs with a spoon. Someone touches his face, loosens the zipper on his tac vest, and shakes him just a little.

"McKay. Mc _Kay_. C'mon buddy, we – "

John sounds frantic, so Rodney opens his eyes, whispers, "s'okay, I'm – " and god, that was a mistake, so much light, things spinning, and he turns his head and throws up all over Ronon's boots.

*****

Rodney's feeling a little better by the time they get back through the 'gate and insists he can walk to the infirmary under his own steam (even if John hovers at one elbow, Teyla at the other, and Ronon takes their six). He isn't bleeding, and he didn't hit his head, and he's not feeling noticeably more intelligent than usual, so his big three medical worries are taken care of before the voodoo practitioners can grab hold. Carson wants scans, so Rodney ducks behind a screen to take off his clothes, glances down his torso and over his shoulder, sees his cock and his ass and no gaping wounds, so all in all, he's ready to count this a win.

The scan goes well at first – no brain damage, no spinal trauma, and his lungs are working fine, although they look a little displaced, and that's odd, odd, his stomach is . . . "My god, Rodney," Carson whispers, and that tone of voice never means anything good.

Rodney looks over at the diagnostic screen, tries to make the image there make sense. "What? What?"

"It's – " Carson puts the scanner in something like reverse, makes it generate another composite picture of Rodney's insides. The image is the same as before, bowels and liver, pancreas and . . .

"What?" Rodney asks, panicking a little when he sees a small, fist-sized growth tucked low in his pelvis. "What's that?"

"That," Carson says, a little pale, "is a uterus."

Which is when Rodney blacks out for the second time.

*****

"No."

"Rodney."

" _No_."

Carson sighs. "I have to check that everything's okay."

Rodney laughs a little hysterically? "Okay? Okay? _Everything is definitely not okay!_ " He tucks the blankets around himself more firmly. His ankles are crossed and his thighs are never, ever parting again.

"Look, there's no pregnancy, so – "

Rodney yelps, and pulls the blankets up to his chin.

"- so all we're really looking to discover is – "

"I am not looking to discover anything!" Rodney says, staring at the ceiling. "I am quite happy remaining unexplored! Go sail your Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria up someone else's brand new vagina, Columbus."

" _Rodney_."

Rodney pulls the pillow from under his head and covers his face with it, moaning pitifully until he hears Carson go away.

It's quiet in the infirmary, save for the low murmur of voices in another room, and Rodney curls up on his side, arms wrapped around his chest. He can't quite work up to a full-blown hissy fit – it's all unreal until someone brings out the speculum, he's decided – and he's half a mind to just fall asleep (as coping mechanisms go, naps are in his top ten). But then Teyla arrives, gently ducking between the folds of the curtain pulled around his bed, and she smiles at him kindly, says, "Rodney? Doctor Beckett said you might need to talk."

And it ends up it's not a speculum that makes everything real, it's having to tell your team. Rodney stares at the floor and hates his life and lets Teyla hold his hand.

*****

The internal exam is every bit as uncomfortable and humiliating as Rodney had imagined it would be, and he curses Carson's family line back seven generations for not warming the speculum before sliding it into places where no cold thing has gone before. Teyla stays with him, pats his arm and tells him what's going on in a voice that makes it almost bearable, and the moment he's allowed, Rodney sits up straight and tucks the sheets around his thighs, mouth pinched tight while Teyla rubs his back.

"It all looks perfectly healthy," Carson says gently. "You've a bonny wee uterus and the scan shows a lovely set of fallopian tubes. Not a cyst to be seen on your ovaries."

"Which would be wonderful if not for the fact that, oh yes, I'm a _man_ , and supposed to be able to take a general lack of _cysts on my ovaries_ for granted!" Rodney blurts.

Carson shifts in his chair a little. "Well, aye. There is that. But the scans show no other physical changes – you're still piped to pee through your penis . . ."

Rodney pulls a face.

". . . and I'm detecting no changes in your testicular health. You should be able to ejaculate just as usual and – "

"So I just have extras?" Rodney asks, snippily.

"You do. Zelenka's already out at the site and his first hypothesis is that you accidentally started up a fertility mechanism gone . . . . bad."

"You told Zelenka?" Rodney whispers weakly.

"No! No, no, just – told him you'd experienced some . . . pain. And he should – find out what he could."

Teyla touches Rodney's leg. "He may need to be told of your situation if he is to calculate how to reverse the process."

Rodney slumps pitifully. "Oh just kill me. Kill me now. Hey, take my body for science! You can do marvelous things, pickle my – "

"I'd suggest sleep," Carson says kindly. "Sleep and I'll give you some tampax in case you – "

Rodney sways and only stays upright because Teyla grabs his arm. "Tamp – ax?" he asks. "I'm going to – " He gestures feebly.

Teyla clears her throat. "Perhaps Doctor McKay and I could talk alone?" she says firmly, jerking her chin toward the door.

"Aye. Aye, that's – " And Carson's gone before Rodney can draw breath to insult him further, and it's just him and Teyla and an unasked-for organ that's going to bleed.

******

Teyla is amazing, Rodney decides. She's beautiful and kicks ass and she never seems to get frightened by impending death, but more impressive than that is the fact that she answers questions about girl parts without a shred of embarrassment, and she actually volunteers to give John and Ronon the news about Rodney's genital gifts. Rodney takes a nap while she's off on that errand – she doesn't come back for almost two hours, and when she finally ushers John and Ronon to the foot of Rodney's bed, they're looking chastised and a little sick and Ronon's shifting from foot to foot.

John grimaces a little. "Sorry, buddy. This is – " He gestures helplessly.

Rodney nods. " _Sucks._ "

John manages wry half-smile and rounds the bed to sit by Rodney's hand. "Least you're not turning into a bug," he offers.

"That's something," Rodney says, pushing himself further up against his pillows. "I'm not dying. Huh." He smiles just a little.

"You get cranky, I'll let you shoot my gun," Ronon says.

Rodney smiles a little wider. "Cool."

"At paper shapes," John puts in.

"Kill-joy," Rodney mutters, but he feels a bit better now that no one else is freaking out, and his stomach rumbles ominously. "Hey, can someone – "

Which is how they end up having a picnic in the middle of the infirmary, and Carson throws a fit about crumbs in the beds.

*****

Things are bearable for exactly two weeks. No one but senior staff knows that Rodney's packing twice his usual share of genitalia, and Zelenka works long hours slowly unraveling code and replacing crystals in the overloaded ancient-CPU that Rodney touched. By day twelve, Rodney's even worked up the courage to look at his all-new vulva with a hand mirror, guided by what he likes to think of as a topographical map, printed out from an archived copy of 'Our Bodies, Our Selves' that someone saw fit to upload to the main server before they left Earth. (In the middle of the night between days twelve and thirteen, he gets a little more adventurous, and he's late for senior staff on day thirteen proper, having learned to bring himself off in two places with two hands and feeling entirely improperly smug.)

He puts down his horniness to the fact that he has twice the equipment and twice the urge, and his lower backache to the fact that his muscles are receiving quite the unexpected workout – so he's utterly taken aback to wake up two nights later feeling damp and uncomfortable, a low, nasty ache working deep in his gut. Mumbling tiredly, he gets up to find some Tylenol, regretting his second helping of potatoes and Pegasus yak – which is when he spots the blood on his sheets and freaks out so thoroughly he can't make any sound or move an inch.

It takes him two minutes after paralysis passes to find his radio amid the detritus on his desk, and two more after that to figure out how to get the damn thing in his ear. Five minutes later, Teyla's outside his quarters, a small cloth bag in her hand, a box in the other, and an expression of calm on her face that Rodney can't possibly believe she's feeling.

"This _hurts_ ," he says the moment she walks in his door. "And it's messy. And it _hurts_. And there is no way in hell I am sticking anything up my very angry vagina right now! Carson is a . . . _man!_ "

She smiles sympathetically. "I have many things that will help."

Rodney whimpers. "You do?"

"Herbs and painkillers and some alternative forms of – "

"Alternative!" Rodney says, seizing on the word. "Yes, yes, alternative is good, I like alternative, my _vagina_ likes alternative, I – "

Teyla presses the bag into his hand. "It will all feel easier if you can be calm."

"Calm?" Rodney asks, feeling brittle and half-crazed. "It's a little hard to be calm when I am _bleeding from my genitals!_ How do you use these for sex? How do you get any pleasure out of them? Sure, sure," he said, waving his hand, "they do that nice, warm throbbing thing if you treat them right on the good days, but then once a month they turn on you, turn on you and start – "

Teyla sets aside her packages and pulls his forehead down to hers. "Breathe, my friend. Everything will be all right, I promise."

Rodney swallows hard and tries to slow his gasping. "Promise?"

"Promise," she repeats and smiles, straightening up slowly. "Take the bag into the bathroom, clean yourself as you think best, and use whatever feels most comfortable to deal with the bleeding. I will make tea."

"Tea." Rodney looks at the bag in his hand. "Tea. Yes, that sounds . . ." And he stops to find new underwear – godforsaken briefs that he's glad now he didn't use as a rag to clean his laptop screen – as he heads toward the bathroom, hopeful that the bag contains whatever Teyla uses to generate her inner peace.

*****

Teyla's tea is wonderful – spicy and soothing all at the same time – and Rodney has two cups with some regular painkillers so that by dawn he's feeling a lot less like his brain might explode. They remake his bed, and Rodney spends another five minutes in the bathroom, then he crawls beneath cool, clean sheets and blinks at Teyla sleepily as she tidies the teacups away.

"Thank you," he says softly.

"You are welcome," she smiles, and Rodney's almost asleep when she uses her radio, closer still when his bedroom door chimes.

John looks uncomfortable as he steps inside but Teyla ushers him in as if he were expected. "I have the morning meditation class to lead," she says, eyeing Rodney as though to forestall protest, then at John as if to reassure him things are okay. "I believe Rodney would sleep better if he had someone near. This has all been very . . . disquieting."

Rodney blushes and wriggles down a little further under his blankets, but John just nods. "Brought a comic book," he says, pulling it out of his back pocket and sitting down on the couch.

"Sleep," Teyla says, patting the top of Rodney's head. "I will return later." And with whispered words of confidence to John, she leaves.

Rodney wants to sleep, but this is weird – this is beyond weird, lying in bed, bleeding gracelessly while John reads about Spiderman as if it's the most normal thing in the world. "Sorry," Rodney says, sighing, feeling awkward.

"Hey," John says, lifting a shoulder and letting it fall. "No big thing."

"But it is," Rodney mumbles. He shifts onto his back, picks at the blankets with one hand. "I don't know how they do this, you know. All of them. The women. All the time."

John blows out a breath. "Me either." He puts down his comic, pulls a face. "Is it gross?"

Rodney prevaricates for a second. "Not as gross as you'd think," he offers at last. "But it hurts a lot more than they let on."

John chews on his bottom lip for a moment, then gets up and crosses the room. "Budge up," he says, edging his butt onto Rodney's pillow. "I'll read you Spiderman."

"Do voices?" Rodney asks, eyes growing heavy.

"Course," John says, and Rodney falls asleep to dream of swinging through the glass and metal canyons of New York in the spring.

*****

It ends, as all trauma is wont to do in the Pegasus Galaxy, with someone trying something that patently shouldn't work under the current laws of physics. Rodney gets his regular body back, and can't stop ducking into closets to check his blessedly smooth perineum a dozen times a day, and he keeps a chest of spicy, loose-leaf tea in his quarters, doling out little bags of the stuff to the women of the expedition and generally confusing John to his core.

When the Daedalus arrives, six weeks later, there are two enormous packing crates marked "NUCLEAR MATERIALS" transferred to Rodney's lab. No weapons or nuclear-powered technology emerge from Rodney's domain in the next several months, but the female members of the expedition all suddenly have hot water bottles, and good Swiss chocolate, and big bags of pretzels with extra salt. Someone starts running a clandestine notice board on the main Atlantis server – no one can seem to track down the source, but whomever's posting is giving out vital information about the location and purpose of the clitoris, so no one, especially Weir, is in a hurry to shut it down.

John gets socks and a robot that shoots lasers and a Judy Blume book for his birthday from Rodney that year.

Rodney gets a picture frame from Teyla, carefully engraved with, "we came in peace, for all mankind."


End file.
